Happy Holidays!

12/10/2007

I've been neglectful again with this blog. However, having my second life-threatening illness in just over three weeks might prove to be a good excuse.

It turns out the trip to Disney was a little more eventful that I previously thought. Last weekend I started to feel an enormous amount of pain in my legs that eventually stretched out from my shoulder to my toes on my right side. It became painful doing anything, and my daughters learned to run and hide their ears under the pillow when I tried to get up from bed because of all of the screaming.

It turns out something was wrong with a socket in my back to hip and that there were systems in my body already shutting down. A few more days of not getting treated could have meant paralysis or even - well, let's not go there. The good news is that the treatment is going well, and I have to have some physical therapy soon for a few months.

Oh, and my career of riding roller coasters is now official over. Many of you might be familiar with a study that showed how many people were living longer with bariatric surgery. This particular study showed a perplexing fact - well perplexing to some - that the only number of increased deaths among bariatric surgery patients was in the category of accidents. Why? Because once you have the surgery you start living again - you know, doing all the things you've seen others do for so long. Fortunately, I'm not a statistic for deaths, but I do understand first hand the validity of this study.

For the record, I've now lost 83 pounds since the surgery, and 99 pounds since the start of this year. It's been a slow month for weight loss, but I lost so much during my first big illness right before Thanksgiving.

I'm not going to lie though - I've struggled in my attempts to eat properly during this season. It just proves that the surgery is just a tool and not a magical pill. I've got to consciously do a better job and when I do I'll see better results and feel better.

My oldest daughter took some photos of me this weekend and once I figure out how to get them out of the camera and into the cyberworld I'll post them here. (Mice, take cover!!)